Start-up sets up sleeping pods at site of former bank in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO — Housing for just $700 a month is now a reality in San Francisco.
The housing start-up, Brownstone Shared Housing, received approval from city officials for 30 sleeping pods in a former bank building in Downtown San Francisco.
Christina Lennox is one of the co-founders, but she also lived in the sleep pods on and off and still has one at the facility.
"I put some decorations in here I put some convenience items like a whiteboard," said Lennox, showing off her sleep pod. "It's really just a bed for me, and then I live in the common spaces."
She said that's true for most people who choose to live at the facility, located at 12 Mint Plaza.
At full capacity, it can house 30 people. Currently, there are about 15 living in it. Each person has a pod, a small storage cabinet, and more storage in the basement.
The space used to be a bank.
"This is actually the teller's desk and this is where the bank workers used to work, so we left it here," said Brownstone Shared Housing CEO James Stallworth.
Stallworth said Brownstone Shared Housing initially started renting pods in Palo Alto. San Francisco is their second Bay Area location.
In 2023, city officials ruled that the pods violated building codes because they had not received approval for the conversion to housing from a banking facility.
For a few months, they stopped renting new units.
"So, it took about nine months to actually just get through code enforcement," said Stallworth about the long process.
After that, they were able to file a change of use and things sped up. Now, that they have approval, they are accepting new residents again.
Stallworth looked at how much people make to determine the $700 price tag.
"A lot of people are making $2,000 something per month, so we wanted to make sure it was affordable for as many people as possible per month," said Stallworth.
The concept is more like Japanese capsule hotels than to traditional apartments. Stallworth and Lennox came up with the idea after their own struggles finding post-college.
They don't want anyone to give up their dreams because of cost of living.
"There's so many people who just give up on opportunities because they have no housing, and we didn't think that should be a barrier for people pursuing opportunities," said Stallworth.
And sometimes opportunities come from just living in this type of space.
"And then when you're living with all the other people too you can collaborate on the projects you're working on or if you're learning a new language you can talk to other people in that language," said Lennox about the experience living in the pods. "It's really cool. You find a lot of people who share the same ideals as you."
